American Bible Society wants $300M for HQ

American Bible Society is asking at least $300 million for its headquarters at 1865 Broadway.

The American Bible Society has been tempted by the city’s hot property market.

The nonprofit, which publishes, translates and disseminates the Bible around the globe, has put its world headquarters just up the street from Columbus Circle for sale. The building, where the group has based its operations for 48 years, could be worth $300 million or more, most likely as a development site for a residential tower.

The American Bible Society has hired Cushman & Wakefield brokers Helen Hwang, Nat Rockett and Steve Kohn to market and sell the property, a roughly 180,000-square-foot building at 1865 Broadway that is known for its bulky concrete facade.

The 200-year-old nonprofit is aiming to sell its headquarters and move on, either leasing a replacement office space or buying another building. That would allow the new owner to raze the building and put up a roughly 300,000-square-foot residential condo tower to be erected in its place using surplus development rights that exist on the site.

“The 1865 Broadway property has served us well for nearly 50 years,” said American Bible Society board chairman Pieter Dearolf, in a statement. “The decision to sell the property was made to unlock the value of the site to further the mission of American Bible Society. As we approach a third century of our mission, we are laying the groundwork for the next 100 years of inviting people to experience the life-changing message of the Bible.”

On the corner of West 61st Street, a residential building on the site would be a block from Central Park and in close proximity to some of the city’s priciest apartment addresses, including 15 Central Park West, the Time Warner Center and the Trump International Hotel & Tower, all buildings where apartments sell for thousands of dollars per square foot.

Given the stratospheric values in the area, a buyer could pay in excess of $1,000 for the development rights alone, what would likely be a near-record sum for land in the city.

“When you see a high-end development site it has to have the right zoning and scale, the right height and footprint, it has to be on a corner and have a presence, and it has to be near marquee amenities like Central Park and the river,” Ms. Hwang said. “This site checks all of those boxes.”

The base of the building could itself be a gold mine given the astronomical level of retail rents in the area. With the success of the Time Warner Center, Columbus Circle in recent years has become a shopping destination in Manhattan.

The deal is the latest example of a nonprofit, educational, or religious property owner moving to cash in on the city’s surging property market. Ms. Hwang and her team have handled several such deals. Last year, Cushman sold 101 Murray St., a building in lower Manhattan that was owned and used as an academic facility by St. John’s University, for $223 million.

Ms. Hwang also handled the sale of property owned on Sullivan Street by the Children’s Aide Society, a nonprofit, in 2011 for $33 million. Now she is handling another sale for the group, an Upper East Side townhouse on East 86th Street, known as the Rhinelander Children’s Center, for about $20 million.

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